Like Harry Armistead and others, I was over at Slaughter Beach, DE, on  
Wednesday and noted the large numbers of stranded horseshoe crabs.
 
I got to thinking: we birders have been understandably very upset with the  
over-harvest of horseshoe crabs and the effect of that take on egg 
production  and thus the survival of Red Knots.  Yet few people make any effort at 
all  to rescue overturned crabs to allow them to get back into the water or 
transport  crabs stranded in parking lots and other unsuitable locations.
 
Chris and I overturned about 50 crabs in ten minutes or so on Slaughter  
Beach, but of the 25 or so birders I saw during the day, no one else did  
anything that I witnessed.
 
I have heard the argument that crabs have evolved over a million years or  
so and so have survived despite the losses due to overturning in the surf or 
 being stranded by extra high tides far from the water's edge.  But  
evolution occurred before there were roads, parking lots, rip rap, piers,  
breakwaters and all the other accouterments of civilization.
 
I wonder what the effect would be if every birder visiting the shores of  
Delaware Beach turned over or rescued just 25 crabs a day?  Helpful?   
Significant?  Enough to offset the losses to crabbers?
 
Bob Mumford
Darnestown
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